


Delightfully Distracted

by jillyfae



Series: By Stone and Shield [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Humor, Romance, Size Difference, Size Kink, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who said love was sensible?  Or even serious?  Or really, anything that anyone had the slightest bit of control over?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delightfully Distracted

**Ingva Brosca**

It was all Warden Duncan’s fault. He’d gone and been reasonable and helpful all the way from Orzammar, so she hadn’t suspected some devious trap when he’d told her to go find the newest Warden, Alistair. But it obviously _was_ a trap because when she’d found him she’d almost stumbled over her own feet listening to him babble at the angry mage because she’d never met anyone who was just as good at saying the silliest least sensible thing as she was and it did something impossibly complicated to the feeling in the pit of her gut and she’d _smiled_ at him. Without even thinking about it. Or checking her dagger.

And he was so bloody tall. Tall as a paragon statue, now that she’d finally see them when she got hustled out of Orzammar, and well, everyone was tall, humans and elves everywhere being all skinny and too high above the ground but only around him did she actually feel short. Deliciously wonderfully short, like he could wrap his body all the way around...

And that smile, and the shy little light in his eyes when he made her laugh, like her opinion was actually important, and how he stood as sturdy as Stone behind that shield of his, shrugging off hits that shoulda sent him sprawling...

_Ancestors, what is wrong with me?_

Well, she knew perfectly well what was wrong with her, what with watching her mother rut the neighbors when she’d run out of coin to buy her own ale, and Rica training to be a noble hunter and all, but she’d never actually felt any particular desire to invite anyone else between her legs as her hands were pretty good at getting the job done. Plus, most dusters were likely to get their own off and leave her hanging, in her opinion, if she’d even managed to find one who was interested in her rather than her sister anyways, so why did she keep wondering what the human looked like under his armor, or what those deliciously calloused hands would feel like against her skin?

_His fingers are just so big, broad and strong, with wide blunt tips..._ Stone, she was going to start blushing and stammering next time he talked to her, at this rate.

_Pretend you’re fine._ But apparently she wasn’t nearly as good at hiding what she was thinking as she used to be, because now he was looking at her, and his eyes were smiling, and people weren’t generally nice, especially to her, unless they wanted something. But he apparently really just wanted to be sure she was alright.

What was she supposed to do with that? How was that not the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her? First Warden Duncan taking her under his wing like she was important, and then Warden Alistair smiling at her like he cared? She forced herself to smile back at him like really she wasn’t trying to imagine if humans were as big everywhere as they were tall and...

“Wolves!” Daveth’s warning shout rang out, and thank every bloody ancestor EVER she could go kill things now and stop thinking.

* * *

**Alistair Theirin**

“STONE!” The woman in front of him shouted in frustration, stopping for a moment right in front of him as yet another apparently solid path actually _wasn’t_. “Rocks, gravel, pebbles... SAND!” Her growl was accompanied by a truly unpleasant squelching sound as her foot descended back into the mud.

She thought yelling “sand” was swearing. And she stomped her foot when she was mad. How cute was that? Oh, wait, she still had a dagger in her hand. _Don’t tell her you think she’s cute, she’ll gut you._

Alistair was desperately embarrassed by how ineffective that line of thought was in discouraging the, well, you-know-what, heating up his blood and heading dangerously close to his groin. In fact, he was pretty sure the whole very sharp and deadly part was adding to the problem and wasn’t he glad he had nice thick armor and how was he ever going to tell the woman he _liked_ her if he couldn’t even think a simple word like desire in the privacy of his own head?

He wasn’t, that’s what. He was destined to die a cold and lonely virgin, devoured by wolves or bears or giant spiders some stormy night in this Maker-forsaken swamp.

Or else the witch was going to kill him before they got to Lothering.

Unless he killed her first.

Which would be a lovely idea if not for the fact that she was the only one who knew how to get out of the Wilds, and his fellow Warden had made it very clear they needed all the help they could get (which of course was so very true and he couldn’t argue in the slightest even if he wanted to) and he wasn’t even to THINK of causing trouble with the nice lady who’d helped save their lives and could make fire with her fingertips, thank you very much.

Ingva, _such a pretty name, not like any I've ev er heard before, and wait, not helping._   Brosca, yes, that was better, comrade-like, not girl-like, not that girls didn't make very good comrades, because obviously, it was just, she was so ...

She was very fond of fire, and very not-fond of rain and was seriously lacking a proper understanding of how very very _bad_ wild magic was.

Probably because of the lack of both weather and scary-potential-maleficars underground, but still. Was the presence of fire really a good enough reason to trust the apostate? He didn’t think so.

Which just meant he had to keep an eye on her.

Which was not nearly as much fun as keeping an eye on the dwarf, no wait, that wasn’t the word she used, on the _dwarva_ who was still muttering softly under her breath as she slid her way through the mud. The extra slither in her step did wonderful things to the curve of her backside...

_Andraste’s Flaming Sword_ , he was destined for the Void at this rate.

But she’d actually been happy to meet him, and he’d realized she was quite the most delicious looking handful of curves he’d ever seen, and there was something very _very_ wrong with him, that the thought of how very much of her small body would fit in his hands was positively intoxicating.

She’d even laughed at his jokes, and she was really very very good at killing monsters, which he hadn’t even realized was something he _enjoyed_ in a woman ‘til she’d grinned triumphantly at him over her first dead Darkspawn after leaving camp at Ostagar and he’d rather forgotten how to breathe for a moment, and how was he supposed to find any of that any less than irresistible?

Well, there was that whole Blight thing. Yes. Archdemon. Definitely a mood-killer. He was a Grey Warden. He could remember the Archdemon long enough to do his job and by then he’d either be dead or they’d have saved the world and maybe she’d agree to have a drink of ale with him or something?

Yeah.

That was a horrible plan. He was pathetic.

But, it was good enough to distract him from thinking about everything that had gone wrong, and could still go wrong, and how very dead they were all likely to be even without the bitch apostate betraying them sometime soon, and how ill-prepared he was to be the Senior Warden and _Maker’s Breath_ he missed Duncan.

_Well, that worked._

Sighing unhappily through his nose, Alistair turned his gaze toward Morrigan again, waiting to see where the hopefully-not-actually-demon-ridden witch was leading them now.

* * *

**Ingva Brosca**

When had she gone and been stupid enough to fall in love? Yes, lust, she'd fallen in lust at first sight, which hadn't been particularly smart either, but the luxury of having a tent to herself meant she could just rub one out most nights, but love? With a human? A giant, gorgeous, sweet, delectable...

_Stop that._

He was just so bloody nice. _And big._ It shouldn't be possible for one person to be that nice without also being an idiot. And he wasn't. An idiot, that is. He obviously didn't realize how smart he was, or he hadn't, but he was starting to, starting to notice how often he was explaining the Surface to her, how frequently he knew the best place to camp, or where to put Leliana so she'd do the most damage and not get stomped by angry bandits or darkspawn. _Not that Leliana's easy to stomp, of course._

Ingva was quite good at killing things, yes, but she hadn't ever had much opportunity to play nice with others, after all. Alistair, however, actually knew what he was doing, and often had a damn fine plan for their next move.

So, yeah, maybe he wasn't very good at talking to people, as he was convinced he wasn't supposed to put himself forward or something silly like that, _damn Eamon, anyways_ , so he wasn't very persuasive, _except for me, he could persuade me into_ anything _if he'd just try_ , but she was perfectly happy to grin and wave her dagger around until everyone they ran into gave up and agreed with her.

It was quite amazing how effective a _dwarva_ with a sharp pointy weapon could be when dealing with humans and elves. Probably because her weapon waving was rather about groin height on most men. That seemed to make them nervous. Being about stomach height on most women was almost as good, too. No one liked a gut wound.

* * *

**Alistair Theirin**

_Maker_ , she was grinning again. That wicked little grin that usually presaged someone getting hurt. Badly. What was broken in his head that the sight of it was making all the blood flee his brain in favor of, other, more southerly, places?

He prided himself on being a gentleman, on being nice, on not taking advantage, and he had no idea what to do with these layers and layers of _want_ that kept slipping through his blood and his brain and his imagination when he was alone in his tent at night and could no longer resist the need to do _something_ about all that frustration every day.

And he always thought about _her_ when he did that, too. Was that creepy of him? He was pretty sure that was creepy. _Void._

He'd long since wandered past the point of thinking she was pretty and he liked her, to realizing she was the most amazing woman he'd ever met and he was desperately in love with her and wanted to spend every night he had left with her, but every time he tried to tell her even just that she had nice eyes his throat swelled up and he forgot how to not trip over his own feet.

Though, he did usually manage to make a stupid joke, which made her laugh, which was _spectacular_ , her body loose and her eyes bright as she stared right at him, only him. But then he never followed it up with anything useful so she went back to whatever she was doing before he awkwardly interrupted her, and that was dreadful.

He bet her lips tasted wonderful.

He bet, after all this time dithering, if he ever _did_ get to kiss her he'd then attempt something stupid like shoving them both into the nearest tent, and as he'd never actually done that sort of thing he'd probably be horrible at it and she'd never let him touch her again and that would be worse than dreadful.

_Maybe the Archdemon will eat me, and I won't have to worry about embarrassing myself any more?_

He needed a plan. A purpose. An excuse?

_A rose._

Well, that was bloody brilliant, why hadn't he thought of that ages ago?

* * *

**Ingva Brosca**

_Beauty in the darkness._

She wasn't sure she could remember how to breathe. There was too much air up on the Surface, no proper Stone to hold it in. She was dizzy. Liable to fall up any moment. Only Scabbler on her feet was holding her down.

Well, and the tent, now that she'd escaped inside so no one would see her blushing like a child just because...

_He thinks I'm beautiful. No one thinks I'm beautiful._

_Well, Zevran says I'm beautiful, but I'm pretty sure he could flirt with a Paragon statue and make the Stone squirm._

_Rica's the pretty one. I'm the one you hire to hit things._

_He likes that I hit things?_

That was just...

Not how the world worked, was it? That someone could like you for who you were, what you did, not how well you put on a show, not what you could do for them?

Her chest hurt. Too much air. Heart beating too hard. Too much.

She'd said something silly, she was sure. He'd laughed. She loved his laugh.

Had she told him that? Had she told him how amazing he was? Did he realize she was doing this for him? Blights made things a bit easier below-ground, after all. If all she had left was Rica she'd be tempted to take her time with the treaties, give Orzammar a bit of a break.

_Put off going back there as long as possible. Forever, even?_

But she couldn't do that. Not with him. He deserved better.

_He deserves to have the breath snogged out of him until he's more breathless than I am now._

Well. That was a splendid idea, actually. She could do that.

_Just have to make sure he's sitting down. Or that I knock him over..._

Stone.

That was a glorious thought. All that height and breadth and width sprawled down where she could climb all over him...

Yes. Definitely. Snogging. Tomorrow.

She smiled.


End file.
